Adobe dominates the field of professional photo editing with Photoshop and
with Photoshop Elements it is gaining a similar ascendancy when it comes to
consumer-led PC photography.

Key to Element’s success is its Organizer module which provides dedicated
image management. By default the Organizer adds all imported images (and now
PDFs) to a singe central catalogue though it also now offers a more traditional
folder-tree view of your hard disk. This global approach has many advantages
- but only if you can quickly narrow things down to just those images you are
currently interested in. This is most easily done based on the time your photos
were taken, using either the timeline or the excellent calendar-based Date
view. Alternatively, you can now use the new Find by Details command to find
photos based on other metadata, such as flash status, exposure settings, resolution
and orientation.

To really master your photo collection, you need to tag your photos with those
details that are significant to you. Elements has always made this task as
simple, visual, and interactive as possible, but accurately tagging the subjects
of dozens of photos is inevitably a chore. Or rather it used to be, as Elements
4 now provides an extraordinary solution. Simply hit the new Find Faces for
Tagging command and a new dialog appears presenting a gallery of faces automatically
picked out from all selected images and ready for drag-and-drop tagging! The
underlying technology is jaw-dropping and the whole process is surprisingly
efficient. Sadly however, it’s not a total solution as the recognition
system only works for subjects facing the camera.

Elements’ Organizer window adds dedicated face
tagging.

After tagging, the next task in Elements is to make your photos look their
best. The former Auto Fix window has gone, replaced by a single one-click Auto
Smart Fix command available directly from the Photo Browser. This certainly
simplifies things for beginners but it means that you have to load up the Editor
module even for the simple task of cropping. On the other hand, when removing
red eye, users are now spared from even opening their photos as the new Auto
Red Eye Fix command works automatically. You can even automatically remove
red eye from all images on import.

Automatic corrections are fine for most images but to take control of the
enhancement process you need to load up Elements’ excellent Quick Fix
window which provides both automatic and slider-based control of all the most
important colour corrections. Previously these Quick Fix corrections could
only be applied globally, but now the window adds two selection tools that
let you confine enhancements to particular areas of the image. The Selection
Brush tool lets you build up a selection by painting while the new Magic Selection
Brush lets you roughly scribble over the object and then attempts to work out
what you are trying to select. It’s another example of Adobe trying to
make life as simple as possible but, unless the object is clearly distinguished
from its background, the system fails more times than it succeeds.

For maximum control over your images you need to shift from Quick Fix to Standard
Edit mode. Here you will find a breadth of power borrowed directly from Photoshop
ranging from non-destructive adjustment layers and advanced retouching through
to artistic filters and vector handling (the latter now including support for
paragraph text complete with wyiswyg font preview). It’s the photographic
capabilities that are most important for Elements’ users and, as such,
it’s disappointing that Photoshop CS2’s Lens Correction filter
for dealing with camera-based distortion and aberration hasn’t been imported
(at least in the press beta under review).

However there is a range of new power to compensate in the form of an excellent
new correction command for adjusting the overall image to produce realistic
skin tone; an enhanced Crop tool that lets you swap between presets and orientations
on the fly; and a new Straighten tool for correcting photos taken at an angle.
Most impressive is the Magic Extractor for pulling out objects from their background
ready for colour correcting or compositing. The Extractor dialog is based on
the same technology as the Magic Selection Brush but offers greater control
and is much more successful as a result.

Once you’ve enhanced your photos and created your compositions in Elements’ Editor
window, it’s back to the Organizer window to create more advanced projects
and to share them with others. Here the biggest change is to the Slide Show
Editor which now lets you add text, objects, audio, narration, transitions
and advanced zoom and pan effects to your presentations before outputting them
to WMV, VCD/ DVD, or direct to TV (assuming you have one hooked up to a Windows
Media Center system). Other improvements include better email-based workflow
and the ability to import Outlook and Vcard contacts. You can also now drag
and drop photos to a dedicated Order Prints window to arrange professional
output from Kodak and, in the shipping version, the ability to upload collections
and to invite family and friends to view them will be more integrated and generally
smoother.

Ultimately Photoshop Elements 4 demands more from its users than alternatives
such as Corel Photo Album (see page ), but it gives a lot more in return. By
focusing on what users want to do with their photos and working out how best
to help them do it, Adobe has come up with a near-perfect partner for your
digital camera.

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